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Whitechapel Estate

London

A redevelopment of c.13,000m2 of central Whitechapel in East London for Londonewcastle of which nearly 6,000m2 is open space, half of it fully accessible to the public.It includes a new “green spine”, a heavily planted, wide pedestrianised street and a more enclosed residential courtyard. We are collaborating with Adjaye Associates and PLP Architecture.

We looked for a typology that provides flexibility and variety. There is a strong overall typology which derives more from organic, indigenous place making rather than pure modernist or classical aesthetics. Paths are not parallel, they respond to the way people cut corners; corners that are skewed rather than right-angled, irregular spaces are made where one might have something to sit on or a small group of trees. People always have a choice of where to go and are not shoved down one path or corralled into an important place.

We see much of the planting having a meadow like character with the more peripheral parts, closer to the buildings having a higher proportion of shrubs.